Dr. Vassilios Papadopoulos at the Kirkland Library

The Friends of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) and the MUHC Foundation held another New Faces New Ideas lecture on June 3, 2008. The Kirkland Library was pleased to welcome guest speaker, Dr. Vassilios Papadopoulos, Director of the Research Institute of the MUHC, Associate Executive Director for Research at the MUHC, and Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University.

Dr. Papadopoulos is a world-renowned researcher who recently joined the MUHC family after a tenure of almost 20 years at the internationally recognized Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Dr. Papadopoulos’s lecture will focus on Alzheimer’s disease, explaining what scientists now know about the mechanisms of this neurodegenerative condition, describing today's treatments and introducing some of the promising research that he and his team are pursuing right here at the MUHC. Using new compounds derived from steroids, Dr. Papadopoulos and his colleagues have managed to reverse the progression of Alzheimer’s in animals. This totally novel therapeutic approach marks a milestone in Alzheimer’s research, and may lead to drugs which could benefit the thousands of patients worldwide who are afflicted by this devastating disease.